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"Despite Karin Bartimole’s uncharitable review on Amazon.com, with which I couldn’t disagree more (on all counts), I ordered this book. The concept is unique and relevant in our fast-paced world, that relegates Soul to the unconscious. Reading through the poems brings me into a quiet space within myself, and is a reminder to make each moment count.
Seena’s sentient nature allows her to imagine the voice of an old fence, a process she created through SoulCollage®. We think about trees as ancient, but Seena’s fence has equally stood the test of time. Not unlike a human being who has aged with grace, Seena has come to personally know the fence, and shares the poetic stirrings of its posts. Through Seena’s eyes, we begin to look at “inanimate” objects as containing communities and villages all their own.
Through more than 20 years of developing the SoulCollage® process, I believe, in addition to her own vast life experiences, this book of poems is unlike any other contemporary collection you’ll read. No doubt, were Rilke alive today (Seena’s favorite poet), he would equally enjoy the poems of this steadfast fence. The poems are laced with Seena’s Soul, not just her heart and spirit. And, that makes them stand apart from others.
I read Journal of a Steadfast Fence shortly after its publication. Two short videos about the book were subsequently released. Author Seena Frost on Aging begins with a heartfelt reflection on the recent deaths of Seena’s good friend and brother. The softness, texture and reverence I imagined in my mind’s eye as I read each poem is mirrored in Seena’s recitation of “Mossy Face” (p. 23) at the end of the video. You can also walk with Seena through the strawberry fields that inspired these poems in a second video, Poems in Strawberry Fields with Seena Frost, in which she introduces the viewer to some of the actual poets: Storyteller, The Jester, The Mystic (the first post to speak), The Dancers, The Wounded Vet, Escape, Broken Heart, and The Newlyweds.
Bookmark these videos. We’ll all be there some day, and Seena’s fence can only offer comfort.
In addition to all this, Seena is a lovely woman. Her beauty and other-worldliness as she recites her poems by memory is priceless."
Sue Gelber started and leads an online SoulCollage® SparkTeam and Vision Collage Gallery through "SparkPeople: Make Your Life an Adventure" - www.sparkpeople.com and blogs at http://mysoulcollagedlife.wordpress.com/
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Listen to Seena reading from her new book
EXCERPT FROM THE PREFACE
"This little book of poems and photographs was commissioned by a fence!
Yes, it’s true; it was commissioned by an old fence that has become my friend. I’ll explain here, briefly, how this happened. Most days, for a dozen or more years, I have taken an early morning walk down the street from my house in Watsonville, California. I go through a gate, walk alongside an apple orchard, and then I circle around fields where strawberries and raspberries are grown. Beside the dirt road I follow is an ancient fence. Its original posts, from the beginning of the last century, were all of redwood. Over years it has been added to, made higher, fallen down, been repaired. But it continues to steadfastly do its work of fencing these fields and the orchard.
...One morning, as I was walking beside this ancient fence, I was saying aloud these words from Rilke’s Ninth Duino Elegy: “...Perhaps we are here in order to say: house, bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit-tree, window—At most: column, tower… But to say them, you must understand, Oh to say them more intensely than the Things themselves ever dreamed of existing...” And then it seemed to me that a fence post right beside me chimed in with the word “fence” as an addition to Rilke’s list. “How about praising us? How about noticing us?”
...One day, I pulled a fence photo out of this box and thought I’d see if it would like its own, personal journal page. I wondered what it might tell me if I listened carefully. I did listen, and I was well rewarded. Every post in every picture was eager to speak. Gradually, over months and years, each photo came to have a journal page clipped to it, and on that page were many dated journal entries. I imagined the image on the photo speaking to me in the first person, telling me its name and its story, its hopes, its worries, its wisdom. Eventually these journal entries became the foundation for the poems in this book. Each poem is placed alongside the photo of its original fence author.
...Projection? Admittedly. Imagination? Absolutely. Imagination is one of the greatest gifts we humans have been given by our Creator. With it we can converse directly with the living nature, not only of beings, but of all Things. Using imagination we can discover how all Things are alive and all Things are holy. We have a living community around us at all times. With imagination we can reach out and touch it."
~ Seena Frost